There have not yet been any confirmed cases of the H1N1 strain of swine influenza in the Pensacola area, but the University of West Florida is closely monitoring the spread of the virus, according to an Argus announcement.
Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised the worldwide pandemic alert level to Phase 5 on a 6-phase scale, and the number of confirmed cases has been steadily climbing over the past few days. A Phase 5 alert “is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short,” according to the CDC Web site. Phase 6 indicates a global pandemic is underway.
“To prevent illness, the No. 1 thing would be to stay informed,” said Patricia Marshall, a registered nurse at the University Health Center. “Listen to the radio and read the paper and see whether symptoms are in the area.”
Marshall said the second most important precaution is hand-washing, and the CDC recommends washing hands for at least 15 seconds with an antibacterial soap.
“Before eating, before touching your face, before preparing food, after shaking somebody’s hand — even if you just walked down the hallway to get to your classroom, and you’re in class all day, and then you’re leaving to go eat lunch, you’d need to wash your hands before you eat,” Marshall said.
The H1N1 strain of flu is primarily spread by droplets in the air, Marshall said, so the main method of transmission is breathing in contaminated air or touching something that’s been contaminated by someone sneezing or coughing on it.
The CDC guidelines on its Web site also recommend that sick persons limit contact with healthy people and stay home from school or work if they become ill, to limit the spread of the virus.
“Avoid sick people and enclosed spaces,” Marshall said.
She said because there’s no vaccine for this strain of influenza people should be very cautious, and she said Health Center staff are keeping up with information released by the CDC and the American Red Cross.
“We know right now the regular flu season is pretty much over,” she said, “so they are considering, if someone comes in with symptoms that could be flu-like, they’re considering ‘is it in any way related.’ That is in their thoughts, to make sure when they’re diagnosing someone that it couldn’t be that, instead of just assuming that it’s not.”
There aren’t any plans to close the UWF campus at this time, Marshall said, but if there were cases in the area that might change.
“With Student Affairs, the first priority is safety,” she said. “They wouldn’t hesitate to do something like that if they felt like it was warranted. They wouldn’t worry about schedules — they’d be more concerned with people’s health.”
Follow the CDC emergency updates on Twitter at http://twitter.com/CDCemergency and get up-to-date information at http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/.
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